Irondale

Irondale high school. New Brighton, Minnesota. The Marching Knights. They have one good Marching Band show. And when I say show I mean show. I mean I was excited by what they were doing and how perfectly they were doing it. Their Marching Band is almost nothing like ours. Besides the fact that they march and play instruments.

Let’s start with the first time I saw them. It was at their own competition, at their own high school. Their show that year was zombies. Now I had to watch from the away side so I got to see behind a giant wall they brought out…let me repeat that, Giant Wall they brought out on field. Their color guard hid their flags behind it and they, themselves hid behind it also. I don’t really remember much about their show two years ago. Just that is was amazing, about zombies, and the whole band turned into zombies. At the end I remember a few of the band members got to take over the drum major ladder and he jumped off. That was a very scary moment because we, my fellow spectators and I, had no clue if he was meant to do that! We thought he could actually be dying! But no. he meant to jump off a ten foot high ladder.

                And now this year, Irondale’s show is “GRIMM stories.” As in stories from the Grimm forest…How cool is that? They have trees on the field and their color guard is dressed as little red riding hood. The two male color guard members are dressed as wolves! Its just generally awesome, in my opinion! Their big trick this year was having a guard member throw other members flags from the top of a ladder, as they were dancing. And while doing all that, they still stayed in step.

                In my neck of the woods show choir is the big thing. Show choir is what its all about, marching band is…not. I cannot help but think how odd it would be to have a marching band that is looked on as good, and entertaining. It’s like show choir and band switch places. Just an odd thought. Read more about Irondale Bands here: http://www.irondalebands.org/